Famed for her success in the band Steps, Claire will be shelving her pop sounds to find her inner prima donna as she takes part in Popstar to Operastar.
Will the Steps star be an opera act to remember, or be 'Better Best Forgotten'?
Claire is hoping that her appearance on Popstar to Operastar will allow her to show her young son Charlie what she does for a living. At the moment the four year old believes his mum’s job is ‘changing nappies!’
“I just thought I don’t want him to think that’s all I do. I mean it’s great, obviously, but it kind of got me thinking.”
She continues, “This show is perfect. It will get me back into singing and whether or not anything comes from that I don’t know. I’m not really expecting anything, just to have the chance to sing again was really the selling point for me.”
Claire admits she’s been surprised with how the intensive training for the series has already extended her vocal range.
She says that she can “can sing higher than I thought I could” saying, “I don’t read music so I don’t know anything about notes. I have been looking up what C sharp was even though apparently I can sing higher than that, but I was trying to figure out where it is in the scale within a song but I couldn’t!”
The accomplished performer reveals that she was frozen by nerves during her first meeting with mentor Katherine Jenkins, so much so that she was almost unable to sing.
“I was really nervous the first day I met Katherine,” Claire admits. “She asked me to sing either one of my songs or another pop track and I just went all silly! It took me about ten minutes to pluck up the courage to start singing.”
On her jitters, Claire says “I do get nervous. With Popstar to Operastar it’s something different every week and it’s taking me out of my comfort zone!”